The Jewel Of Four Souls
by H. S. Hines
Summary: The jewel has a long past of a repeating pattern of love, pain and corruption. Everyone knows that it is much soughtafter, but few know that the jewel is seeking something itself. Does the jewel even have a future left? Oneshot, complete.


_Disclaimer: I don't own it & don't make money._

Rating: PG  
Genre: Drama, Romance  
Codes: Canon  
Feedback: Greatly desired!

_A/N: I have no idea why the story came out this way, but my lil sis, Blue, inspired it. I hope it came out better than I suspect it did._

**The Jewel of Four Souls**

"Sakura!" the beast at the young girl's feet shrieked. The priestess looked down, fear coursing through her blood as she looked into the eyes of the man she had once known as a human. The thing that stood before her now was a mockery of that man. Despicable in life, he was nothing short of atrocious as a youkai. Sakura clutched the Shikon no Tama hanging from her throat and turned to run. She had been severely wounded earlier in her fight against several large youkai and was in no position to fight this thing.

But he wasn't giving up. Makai had given his everything, his very soul to have Sakura and he would take the damned jewel with her!

This was not an epic battle, compared to others the Shikon no Tama had borne witness to, but it was entertaining. In the end, neither peace nor Hell descended upon the earth and the jewel moved on, disappointed once again. After Jigoku had nearly brought about the end of Japan in his pursuit of the miko, Ayaka, the tama had been certain that the next possession would be the one to end its frozen state.

Then it came to Kikyo. When she died, the jewel thought surely, the cycle was over and they would be free—but it was not to be. They were hurled down into hell, where the soul carried them with it; untouchable even for years after it was reborn into a new human body. Here, it was left with an enigma. Its power was weakened to the point that it could not even call out to the body it inhabited and there were no youkai left anywhere the girl traveled. Kagome would seem to have been their prison, if it had not worked tirelessly trying to restore one set of bones it found in an old well.

It took until the girl was fifteen years old before the tama was able to finish its project and call the centipede to remove it from its cage of flesh. It never would have happened had that fateful car accident not taken Mr. Higurashi from his family and sent his wife and children to live with his father at the old shrine, so near the place the jewel had burned before being dragged into hell. Then everything about the Shikon no Tama's existence changed as it was shattered into hundreds of pieces in the sky and scattered across the land.

Even broken, the souls entombed in the jewel remained bound to the shards. The evil within the jewel now had so much more influence over the hearts of living beings it was assured victory and Midoriko prayed within. The tama began its dance again with this new miko that held it, but it failed to realize a fatal flaw. The man whose heart reached for her was already a hanyo, with a heart of his own and the previous cycle was still running.

All within the Shikon no Tama knew that the balance it had always held was gone, utterly destroyed. Midoriko found the first reason in her life to have hope and she exercised her will for the first time.

The evil had grown so very strong when its counterpart, Naraku, had taken the Midoriko-equivalent's life that it had come to believe it was unstoppable until both hearts of the hanyo and priestess touched it at once and it became pure. Fear had settled deep within the evil and excitement and faith grew within Midoriko, even when the last of her soul was stolen. If the hanyo could only become pure in his heart, she knew that her beautiful sepulcher would no longer enslave her.

InuYasha had little idea that the hope of all that was good rested within his heart. He only knew the thirst for vengeance and the pain of heartbreak being overcome by the warmth of a pure, untainted love. Held in her arms, fear and doubt fled from his mind and heart and he wanted nothing more than to hold her back. Instead, he only held himself back. His fidelity to his first love, which had never had the time to wither or die, prevented him from basking in the heat offered him—the respite from the cold life that was all he had ever known.

He quested for what he knew—blood—the hate burning brightly inside of him and she followed by his side wherever he went. The cycle from before—Kikyo—followed her own quest, seemingly parallel to InuYasha's, but she had come to understand the jewel far better than he or Naraku. What's more, she knew what would destroy it. The only truly selfless wish left.

She had always believed it was about purity, about selflessness, but she had been the most selfish of all. She had asked a man to give up everything he knew for her. Until she had seen the truly selfless love her reincarnation offered the man that they loved, she had no idea of the corruption in her soul. Now she intended to remedy it so that her soul could be reborn as the girl she resented so deeply. But for her plan to work, the jewel had to be whole and in Naraku's possession. He had to finish binding his own soul to it so that she could finally rest and move on…

Foes and allies came and went but InuYasha retained Kagome through it all. Naraku's heart was eventually put back in his body, against his will lest it die and take him down as well and it was the opportunity InuYasha's group had waited for since the baby split from the monster. The fight was bloody, innocent bystanders were slaughtered and the last moment saw Naraku take a desperate gamble—he pierced InuYasha with a jewel shard and fled.

As Naraku predicted, InuYasha lost himself to the demon within and as InuYasha had always feared, he turned against his friends. Miroku erected a barrier to protect himself, Sango, Kirara and Shippo, but Kagome would not let InuYasha fall away from them all. She knew she couldn't 'sit' the shard out of him, so she did the only thing she believed would work. She ran to him to embrace him, even as he tried to rip her to shreds.

She fell short of her goal, however, at the sound of a familiar, unwelcome voice.

"Stay away from him!" Kikyo had her bow drawn back as Kagome turned to her, intent only on destroying the monster in front of her. "So you've succumbed to your weakness, InuYasha. I had hoped…" Whatever Kikyo hoped was not to be known as she let go at that moment.

"No!" Kagome screamed, seeing the purifying arrow aiming true for InuYasha's heart. She did the only thing left for her to save him and she threw herself against his chest, pushing him out of the way and taking the projectile into herself. InuYasha's hands went to the wound, his claws digging into her flesh only for a moment before the gold returned.

He came to himself through the red obscuring his vision and scented her blood on his hands. She held on, weak and shaking and whispering to him, over and over. He leaned down to hear the soft words and closed his eyes as they sank in.

"I love you, InuYasha," she whispered and the shard within him warred desperately to get their mixed messages through to him. One told him to love her, the other, to kill her. The youkai he had become was inclined to listen to the latter, but his heart cleared before it could have his way and he turned his deadly claws on himself, tearing the shard from his chest to hold out to Kagome as he whispered back.

"I love you, Kagome," before the darkness ate him.

It was unexpected, the evil thought as it paused its every action. Midoriko agreed, although she had prayed for this to happen. It wasn't what she had believed would shatter her prison, but she felt her power grow as the evil released its own.

Love.

"You never loved me, Midoriko," it told her. "And that was all I ever wanted." Midoriko had no answer. How could she love this monster that brought nothing but suffering for its greatest joy? She didn't tell it that it would never be like InuYasha; she wanted the weakness to be planted deep within. It was time now, she knew. She used her will to restrain the power leech with two shards of the jewel and they were freed from his body. She urged the thief to run before he regained them and prayed that he survived.

And Kikyo, burdened by the choice she had made, brought another betrayal down upon her soul as she killed the innocent companion at her side. He went quietly, willingly and to a whispered apology as she took the final piece of the puzzle to their greatest enemy as a prize. Naraku took the jewel shard and smiled cruelly at the dead miko before taking her into his body as well and finally resting the voice of Onigumo, as he was finally one with the woman he loved.

The Shikon no Tama was complete again as InuYasha and his people confronted Naraku, a united front against a seemingly invincible foe. But the evil in the tama was so confused now as what remained of Kikyo reached out to what remained of Onigumo and they pushed to the front of Naraku to see InuYasha holding Kagome after she had suffered a blow from their host—so confused that it faltered and for a moment, it had no power. That was the moment Kikyo had waited for and she released every ounce of purifying power in her soul.

Kagome also felt the signal and her own powers flowed out against Naraku, mixing with Kikyo's and giving her the power to make one single wish.

"_I wish that Midoriko and the man who loved her were free from their battle… forever!" _At first, it seemed that nothing had happened… until the next blow InuYasha delivered… connected. Naraku was blown apart and unable to reform. He tried to retreat, but when he turned, he faced an angry pack of wolf youkai led by a young leader who had finished healing from the removal of his shards. When he turned the next way, he faced a stoic taiyoukai who wasted no time in releasing his power against the weakened foe.

Naraku never stood a chance, for the power of his soul had gone with the Shikon no Tama—finally purified from the world. Midoriko appeared to the victors to thank them for a freedom she had never even dared to wish for. Then she felt the release that only comes with fulfilling your purpose on earth as she faced the path to Nirvana…

It was the end of the age of youkai, though those remaining were unaware that their time was going to come to an end. It was the end of the world's grasp on the most powerful object ever created… and the beginning of a very long road on the way to peace. It was also the first time a hanyo had ever known love, real love, and the last time a schoolgirl from Tokyo would travel through a well to a time five hundred years before she was ever born.

But the end was only the beginning for InuYasha and Kagome…

_**The End.**_

_A/N:SinceI've had a few people ask why this is in the Inu/Kik section, I added this note to say it's not. I chose the two main characters (since the jewel is not an available character) this story follows in the character list. It had nothing to do with pairing, which is listed at the beginning of the story. To list Kagome as a main character when she's not (in this story) would have been inaccurate. I'm sorry for any confusion.**  
**_


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